Present day #3
‘And why do you need that?’ Again she interrupted, turning to look at him now, her breath stuttering as she wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.
‘Why do I need that?’ His expression told her he was not unmoved by her tears.
‘Yes, why is it so important for men to build something big, to build anything at all?’
‘It’s what I do, what I’ve always done.’
‘So I guess some would say surely you’ve built enough?’ She toyed with him.
‘Nothing like this.’ He studied the skyline. ‘This is my opus, my swansong. It’s a building that will shape the London skyline – what an opportunity.’
‘Huh.’ She managed to steady her breathing. ‘Why can’t your legacy be like my dad’s: that he never knowingly harmed anyone, showed everyone kindness, gave me a love of music, never laid a brick, as far as I know, but what a wonderful way to remember a person.’
‘I want to do something that matters.’
‘My dad mattered! I matter! My home matters! Things don’t have to be on a grand or exuberant scale to matter! Are you so keen to show how far from that crowded house in East Ham you’ve come that you have to do this?’
‘Yes, probably, and if it’s amateur psychology you want, why is it you’re so afraid of landing that you can’t fly? You don’t even leave the city!’
I’m afraid to fly because there is no one, absolutely no one, to catch me if I fall . . . This was her first and most distressing thought. ‘You know so little about me, even if you think you do. I want to fly, Alfie! I want to!’
‘So what’s stopping you?’ The boat slowed, and the engine ticked, as if both vessel and man waited for her response.
‘I’ve always been too afraid of . . . of . . .’
‘Of what?’ His tone was softer now.
‘Of this not being here when I got back.’ She gave a wry smile at the irony of it all.
‘This what, Lilly?’
‘This home, this view, this river, this feeling like I belong! This place, this history, these memories.’
‘That wouldn’t change just because you weren’t here any more.’
‘Wouldn’t it?’ she snapped.
‘No! People change, things change, you just have to figure out how to change with it! Give life a chance!’
‘You don’t know, Alfie! You don’t know anything!’
‘So tell me. Tell me right now!’ He put the boat into gear, and they headed up the river, the breeze in their faces, the spray hitting the side of the boat as Lady Margery motored gently through the very heart of her neighbourhood, carried along on Old Mother Thames.
‘Tell you what? That I ate my toast, packed my bag, walked to school, had mint sponge with chocolate icing with custard for lunch, which made it a very good day.’ The details of this last day, too, were etched in her mind, as all her hurt and the impending sense of loss bubbled up into her throat, making it feel easier to let it all out, to rid her mouth of the poison.
‘I played netball, and then wandered home, put my key in the door and stepped into a different place, a different world, where everything was changed because my mum had packed her vanity case and left. She left me, and she’ – Lilly hiccupped on her tears – ‘she didn’t even wait for me to come home to say goodbye.
She just . . . just went. She left me for Derek Manners, who was dull!
So dull, and so if that life with him was preferable, what did that say about us?
My mum wasn’t like Lady Margery, there were no Sunday gatherings with our extended family, my mum wasn’t my safe place, the flat was.
Waide House was. Even after Dad, it was my place, my haven. It’s always been that, until now.’
‘I think you’re incredibly strong. You’ve weathered your fair share of storms.’ He spoke with compassion that made her huff; he only knew the half of it .
. . ‘You deserve to be happy, not tethered. And you carry your dad with you – it’s not about a room or a view.
Even if it wasn’t my company, Lilly, I would still, as your friend, tell you that it’s a chance to start over.
It could be very exciting if you let it! ’
‘Could it, Alfie? Could it be very exciting if I let it? And you are most definitely not my friend! You’re not!’ Her voice was hoarse as memories came thick and fast. ‘Why do men like you think it’s okay to take things away without asking, why do you do that?’
‘I’m not trying to take anything away, it’s an opportunity . . .’
‘Not for me. It’s a loss, a huge loss, all because you’ve made the decision to take it from me, from all of us, so that you can sit back and say it’s your legacy, as if that’s all the justification you need.
No matter what it costs me, and people like me.
We are the rightful owners of the space – it’s our legacy! ’
‘I . . . I don’t know what to say.’ He took a long, slow breath and blinked as if tired. ‘But I can see that nothing I am going to say is going to convince you.’
‘Nothing at all.’ She jutted her chin in confirmation.
Alfie clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shook his head as this seemed to register, and with regret.
‘Where would you like to go next, up towards London Bridge or back towards Battersea?’
Lilly took one last long look at her flat from the river, and there she was on the towpath, young and smiling in her suede miniskirt, red knee-high leather boots, and her beaded smock top with buttons undone .
. . It was true what she had said earlier: why did men like him think it was okay to take things away without asking, why did they do that?
That’s a good girl . . . count backwards from ten for me . . .
‘Just take me back.’ She didn’t want to be distressed in front of him, didn’t want to be in front of him at all. ‘Take me to the dock. I want to get off your boat. I want to go home now.’
‘But we still have forty minutes left.’ He sounded almost panicked.
‘I don’t want to spend one more minute here. Please, just . . . just take me home.’